When is it Due? Stat!

You may remember our post “New for 2013-14: An Online Course” announcing the entirely online AP Statistics course taught by Mr. Pishalski. In a recent issue of our student publication, “the growl,” the first year of the course is reviewed by students. The final verdict? Online AP Stats is a success!

At Holy Trinity pretty much everything is done online. Classes are scheduled online, homework is found online, grades are seen online, sports schedules are online, lunch is ordered online, so why shouldn’t math class be online as well?

This year Holy Trinity tried something new by making AP Statistics an online course. It was taught by Mr. Pishalski. He has online lectures for his students to watch and then assignments to work on online. The students were able to take the class any period because it is online, so it made it really easy to ﬁt into everyone’s schedules.

The class this year was taken by juniors and seniors, and it seems that a majority of them found the class interesting and enjoyable.

“The class is interesting and covers a wide range of material. The online opportunity to go in early and have review sessions,” said Hicks.

Mr. Pishalski is aware that the students have the added challenge, but compared to past years they are holding their own.

“The biggest challenge is not getting to see them, but having the required blog posts that answer some of their questions along with the recent review sessions help. Compared to past years their grades are only a little lower,” said Mr. Pishalski.

There are pros and cons to online classes.

“Pros are access to lectures at all times, and you can divide the work as you see ﬁt. A con is the learning process is independent and sometimes it’s hard to stay focused,” said Rashid.

Rush ﬁnds that being able to work on her own time and being able to watch the lectures as many times as needed is a definite plus, but she does have struggles in the class as well.

“You are in charge of your own learning, so if you don’t stay focused you won’t succeed. I just try to block everything out and push through. I think online classes would be better for non-math classes such as science and history because those are easier to learn online than math is,” said Rush.

Stirtzinger agrees that history classes would be better to have online.

With the positive feedback from the ﬁrst attempt at an online class, the administration should continue looking into other online classes to offer to students which would not only offer more class choices, but it would teach students to become more independent in their studies.